Sport and the Brain: The Science of Preparing, Enduring and Winning, Part A PDF
Preview Sport and the Brain: The Science of Preparing, Enduring and Winning, Part A
Serial Editor Vincent Walsh InstituteofCognitiveNeuroscience UniversityCollegeLondon 17QueenSquare LondonWC1N3ARUK Editorial Board MarkBear, Cambridge, USA. Medicine& TranslationalNeuroscience Hamed Ekhtiari, Tehran, Iran. Addiction Hajime Hirase, Wako, Japan. NeuronalMicrocircuitry Freda Miller, Toronto,Canada. DevelopmentalNeurobiology ShaneO’Mara, Dublin, Ireland. Systems Neuroscience SusanRossell, Swinburne, Australia. Clinical Psychology&Neuropsychiatry Nathalie Rouach, Paris, France. Neuroglia Barbara Sahakian,Cambridge, UK. Cognition &Neuroethics Bettina Studer,Dusseldorf,Germany. Neurorehabilitation Xiao-Jing Wang, New York, USA. ComputationalNeuroscience AcademicPressisanimprintofElsevier 50HampshireStreet,5thFloor,Cambridge,MA02139,UnitedStates 525BStreet,Suite1800,SanDiego,CA92101–4495,UnitedStates TheBoulevard,LangfordLane,Kidlington,OxfordOX51GB,UnitedKingdom 125LondonWall,London,EC2Y5AS,UnitedKingdom Firstedition2017 Copyright#2017ElsevierB.V.Allrightsreserved. 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Inusingsuchinformationormethodstheyshouldbemindfuloftheirownsafetyandthesafety ofothers,includingpartiesforwhomtheyhaveaprofessionalresponsibility. Tothefullestextentofthelaw,neitherthePublishernortheauthors,contributors,oreditors, assumeanyliabilityforanyinjuryand/ordamagetopersonsorpropertyasamatterofproducts liability,negligenceorotherwise,orfromanyuseoroperationofanymethods,products, instructions,orideascontainedinthematerialherein. ISBN:978-0-12-811827-6 ISSN:0079-6123 ForinformationonallAcademicPresspublications visitourwebsiteathttps://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals Publisher:ZoeKruze AcquisitionEditor:KirstenShankland EditorialProjectManager:AnaClaudiaAGarcia ProductionProjectManager:MageshKumarMahalingam CoverDesigner:MarkRogers TypesetbySPiGlobal,India Contributors Joseph Baker SchoolofKinesiologyandHealthScience,YorkUniversity,Toronto,ON,Canada Matthew Barlow BangorUniversity, Bangor, Wales, United Kingdom Tim Buszard Institute ofSport,Exercise and Active Living/College ofSport and Exercise Science,Victoria University, Melbourne; GameInsightGroup, Tennis Australia, Richmond, VIC, Australia Dave Collins InstituteofCoachingandPerformance,UniversityofCentralLancashire,Preston; Grey Matters Performance Ltd.,RoyalTunbridge Wells,United Kingdom Tristan J.Coulter The SchoolofExerciseandNutrition Sciences, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Ruud J.R. Den Hartigh University ofGroningen,Groningen, The Netherlands Robert C. Eklund CollegeofEducation,OfficeoftheDean,FloridaStateUniversity,Tallahassee,FL, United States Lynne Evans Cardiff MetropolitanUniversity, Cardiff,United Kingdom Damian Farrow InstituteofSport,ExerciseandActiveLiving,VictoriaUniversity,Melbourne,VIC; Skill Acquisition, Australian InstituteofSport,Belconnen,ACT, Australia David Fletcher SchoolofSport,Exercise, and Health Sciences, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, UnitedKingdom Paul R.Ford Centre for Sport,ExerciseScience and Medicine, University ofBrighton, Brighton,UK Daniel F. Gucciardi SchoolofPhysiotherapyand ExerciseScience, Curtin University, Perth,WA, Australia Lew Hardy BangorUniversity, Bangor, Wales, United Kingdom David T.Hendry SchoolofKinesiology, University ofBritish Columbia, Vancouver,Canada v vi Contributors Nicola J.Hodges SchoolofKinesiology, University ofBritish Columbia, Vancouver,Canada Timothy C.Howle Indigenous PrimaryCareReportingUnit,AIHW, Canberra,ACT, Australia Martin I.Jones Sport and Health Sciences, University ofExeter, Exeter,UnitedKingdom John W. Krakauer TheJohnsHopkinsUniversitySchoolofMedicine,Baltimore,MD,UnitedStates A´ineMacNamara InstituteofCoachingandPerformance,UniversityofCentralLancashire,Preston, UnitedKingdom CliffordJ. Mallett The University ofQueensland, Brisbane,QLD, Australia Rich S.W. Masters TeOrangaSchoolofHumanDevelopmentandMovementStudies,TheUniversity of Waikato,Hamilton,New Zealand; SchoolofPublic Health,The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong,China Tim Rees Bournemouth University, Poole,UnitedKingdom Ian H.Robertson GlobalBrain HealthInstitute,TrinityCollegeDublin, Dublin, Ireland Mustafa Sarkar SchoolofScience and Technology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UnitedKingdom Jefferson A.Singer Connecticut College, New London,CT, United States Tynke Toering Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Oslo, Norway PaulL.C. Van Geert University ofGroningen, Groningen,The Netherlands Nico W. Van Yperen University ofGroningen, Groningen,The Netherlands Chelsea Warr UK Sport,London,United Kingdom A. Mark Williams Department ofHealth,Kinesiology, and Recreation, College ofHealth,The University ofUtah, Salt LakeCity, UT, United States MarkR. Wilson Sport and Health Sciences, University ofExeter, Exeter,UnitedKingdom Contributors vii Tim Woodman BangorUniversity, Bangor, Wales, United Kingdom Kielan Yarrow Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit, City, University of London, London, United Kingdom Li-weiZhang Sport Science College, Beijing Sport University, Beijing, China Preface Inthisvolume,webelievewe’veattractedoneofthemostimportantinvestigations intotheathletedevelopmentandperformanceformanyyears.Itiscommontothe literatureinsportspsychologytoreflecttheinterestsofeithersportorpsychology, butseldomtosatisfytherigorofoneandthepracticalneedsoftheother.Thereare goodreasonsforthis:carryingouttop-classresearch isademandingfull-timejob, and meeting the ever-moving target of elite performance is equally difficult and time-consuming. Trying to put the two together usually demands a compromise on one of the two sides. In this volume, Hardy and colleagues have wrestled with, andbeaten,oneofthechallengesthefieldsooftensalestomeet;thatis,tocombine theinsightrequiredtoaskthequestion,“whatdoweneedtoknowaboutathletes?” withtheexpertisetostructureresearchprojectthatcananswerit.Theyhavealsolet anotherchallengesooftenduckedinsportspsychologyresearch.Havinggrownout ofthestandardmodelsofpsychologicalresearchinwhichonelooksfordifferences betweentwogroupsofpeople,theinvestigationofathletesperformancealsotendsto look for differences between two groups of people, usually as a function of some intervention. But when we deliver psychological and mental skills programs in the elite environment, we are trying to improve the performance of individuals who are by definition outliers—exactly the people psychological group studies do not like and who indeed, if their performance falls far away enough from the rest ofthegroup,aresometimesexcludedfromthedataanalysis.Hardyetal.scoredou- blevictoryinthisregardbyestablishingsomeotherfactorsthatsegregate thebest fromtherestandthengofurtherbyforensicallyinvestigatingthefactorsbehindthe bestofthebest.Thisreallysetsanewbarinunderstandingeliteperformance,and allowsustofreeupsomememoryspaceinourlaptopsbecausewecannowdelete manyof the hundredsof papers topretend todo this. Theauthorsofthetargetpaperinthisvolumehaveusedabiographicalapproach tolearnaboutarangeofdifferencesbetweeneliteathletes,definedasthosewhohave received top-level funding but had never won an Olympic or world championship medal,andsuper-eliteathletes,whohavewonatleastonegoldmedalandoneother majorchampionshipgoldorsilver.Righttherewehavethefirstupliftinqualitythat this investigation represents. Most papers in sports psychology do not access elite athletes, despite pointing their conclusions toward them. Hardy et al., however, accessed in-depth information gathered with 32 elite or super-elite athletes. This is a goldmine. The medicine criticism of the choice of psychosocial factors in this enquiry is a common, thoughtless tax levied against first psychological studies. It iseasytothink,“wellyesweknewthat”butthetruthiswedidn’t,andtherearemany basic and applied lessons tobe learned from the data presented here. Elites and super-elites differed on many variables, the results of which for the purposesofthisprefacewewilltakeatfacevalue.Onedifferencewasnotedinex- posuretoaCultureofStrivinginearlylife.Onecannothelpbutfeel,afeelingthat returnstimeandagainwiththispaper,thattherearelifelessonsaswellassporting xv xvi Preface performancelessonshere.Onedifference thatwillbothresonateandantagonizeis thefindingofanincreasedfrequencyofsignificantnegativelifeeventsinthesuper- elites.Thenotionofbeingsaved byapositiveexperienceofsportissimilarly res- onant and generalizable, and one immediately thinks of people who have reported similar experiences with music, mathematics, science, and any number of lifelong pursuits,ifonlywecouldtimetablesuchexperiencesintotheschoolday!Similarly, forturningpointsinone’sexperience,thecoachingpractitionerispresentedwitha questionthatcanbeaskedeverysingleday—“istodaythedaytoturntheenergyofa setbackintosomethingelse?”Wemayfeelweknewthis,buttheclarityandconvinc- ingexamplesbreathenewlifeintotheimportanceofunderstandingtheimportance of setback. “Examples?” did someone say “examples?” Don’t we know that anec- dotes are not evidence? Well, first of all, they can be the beginnings of evidence totheattentive observer,andsecond,toanticipateacriticismoftenusedtodefend the“wetested12undergraduatesinshortsandnowthinkXabouteliteperformance” approachtosportspsychology,theapproachhereisclosertothatofagroupofsingle casestudies,akintotheclassicstudiesthathaveformedthebedrockofknowledgein neuropsychology, and the importance of which has been articulated elsewhere (Walsh,2014).Thepotentialwiderimportanceofthefindingsisperhapsseenmost clearly in the differences between the focus on outcome vs outcome and mastery. Thisresonatesnotonlywithinsportbutwithintheeducationalandeconomicsectors. Sport is learned in the context of general education wherein results at the end of a moduleareusuallytheonlymeasureofthesuccessofthatmodule.Thereisawider educational philosophical issue here: imagine a world where we welcome the Universitystudentsforwhomthedegreeisabeginning,nottheend.Theinteraction betweenafocusonmasteryandperformanceunderpressureisamajorinsighthere: super-elites perform better because they are process not outcome driven. Another keyinsight,andonethatrunscountertofolkexpectation,isthedissociationbetween the need to win everything and the need to win the right thing. Elites winning at everything (are Elites the real source of family arguments over Monopoly at Christmas?) may seem to represent drive, but the maturity to take an occasional onestepbackbeforethebigleapforwardisworthunderstanding,ratherthanmerely observing.Therearemanyotherexamplesandhighlightswecouldpointtojustify ourpleasureathavingcapturedthisarticlefortheProgressinBrainResearchseries, but science likes to build on foundations of discord. Enter stage right the choir of clashing voices. We invited leading scientists and practitioners to comments on this gargantuan piece of work and offered the original authors the right of reply. Gratifyingly our colleaguesdidnotletusdowninbeing—whatwearebestatbeing—hardtoplease. Itwasreasonablysuggestedbysomethatthetemporalparsingofeventswasinsuf- ficient and/or that the interaction of life events and contexts was insufficiently accountedfor.Therearesomeinevitabletruthstothesekindsofcriticismsbecause anyonegivenstudycanonlydosomuch.Thechallengeforanyoneobservingsuch insufficienciesistohelpfillthegapsandhelptotaketheresearchandpracticefor- ward. The current authors have begun this process in a companion paper to be Preface xvii published in due course (Hardy et al., 2017). It was enlightening to notice that in thediscussionofvariablesandmediators,thecommentatorsmostlylookedtotradi- tional,narrower,laboratory-basedissueswhich,whileinterestingintheirownright, maybeseenasshrinkingfromthecombinationofexpansionanddetailthatmakes the target paper such a significantcontribution tothe field. Theauthorsofthetargetarticlearetobecongratulatedontheirlackdefensive- nessandpositionholdingintheirresponses.Onbeingchallengedastothelimitsof the methodology, their response is to “hold our hands up to all these criticisms.” Wouldthatthereweremoreofthisintellectualhonestyinthediscussionofdifficult, important, and consequential research. We are grateful to the commentators for their incisive and detailed dissection of the target paper, and the result is clearly the emergence of a rich vein of new projects and practice that will address new cohorts, new comparisons, new variables, and new models. One cannot really ask for more from a paper. REFERENCES Hardy, L., Barlow, M., Evans, L., Rees, T., Woodman, T., Warr, C., 2017. Great British medalists:psychosocialbiographiesofsuper-eliteandeliteathletesfromOlympicsports. Prog.BrainRes.232,1–119. Walsh, V., 2014. Is sport the brain’s biggest challenge? Curr. Biol. 24 (18), R859–R860. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.08.003. CHAPTER 1 Great British medalists: Psychosocial biographies of Super-Elite and Elite athletes from Olympic sports Lew Hardy*,1,Matthew Barlow*,Lynne Evans†, TimRees‡,Tim Woodman*, § Chelsea Warr *BangorUniversity,Bangor,Wales,UnitedKingdom †CardiffMetropolitanUniversity,Cardiff,UnitedKingdom ‡BournemouthUniversity,Poole,UnitedKingdom §UKSport,London,UnitedKingdom 1Correspondingauthor:Tel.:+44-1248-382823;Fax:+44-1248-371053, e-mailaddress:[email protected] Abstract Participantswere32formerGBathletesfromOlympicsports,16Super-Eliteathleteswhohad won multiple medals at major championships, and 16 matched Elite athletes who had not. In-depthinterviewswiththeathletes,theircoaches,andoneoftheirparentsexploredallpsy- chosocialaspectsoftheirdevelopmentandcareers.Contentanalysesrevealedthattherewere nodifferencesbetweenSuper-EliteandEliteathleteswithregardtofamilyvalues,conscien- tiousness,orcommitmenttotraining.However,thetwogroupswerefoundtobedifferentwith regardto:(1)theexperienceofafoundationalnegativelifeeventcoupledwithafoundational positivesport-relatedevent;(2)theexperienceofacareerturningpointthatenhancedmoti- vationandfocusfortheirsport;(3)needforsuccess;(4)obsessivenessand/orperfectionism withregardtotrainingandperformance;(5)ruthlessnessand/orselfishnessinthepursuitof theirsportinggoals;(6)dualfocusonbothmasteryandoutcome;(7)theuseofcounterphobic attitudesand/ortotalpreparationtomaintainhigherlevelsofperformanceunderpressure;and (8)therelativeimportanceofsportoverotheraspectsoflife.Theresultsarediscussedwithin thecontextofpsychodynamictheory,andrecommendationsaremadeforbothappliedimpli- cationsandfutureresearch. Keywords Elite,Super-Elite,Athletes,Development,Biographies 1 ProgressinBrainResearch,Volume232,ISSN0079-6123,http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/bs.pbr.2017.03.004 ©2017ElsevierB.V.Allrightsreserved. 2 CHAPTER 1 Great British medalists: A psychosocial enquiry 1 INTRODUCTION Theresultsreportedinthischapterarepartofalargerprojectthatwassponsoredby UKSportwiththeobjectiveofproducingtwokeyoutputs:(1)Apositionpaperthat reportedareviewoftheavailableresearchliteraturetoidentifycurrentunderstand- ingofwhatwasknown,whatwasthoughtlikelytobetrue,andwhatneededtobe explored next with regard to the underpinnings of success at Elite and Super-Elite levelsofperformance.(2)Amultidisciplinarystudythatexaminedthecommonal- itiesanddifferencesbetweenthedevelopmentalbiographiesofSuper-EliteGBath- leteswhohadwonmultiplemedalsatmajorchampionshipsandthoseofmatched, Elite GB athletes who had won medals in international competitions but had not medaled at major championships. The first of these outputs (Rees et al., 2016) was structured into three broad sections which examined research about: the per- former, the environment, and the practice and training underpinning Elite and Super-Eliteperformance.Aspartofthisreview,thepaperidentifiedalistofresearch questions that represented the research team’s best estimate of what needed to be known next. ConsistentwithReesetal.’s(2016)recommendationsforfutureresearch,theen- suingretrospectivemultidisciplinarystudyexaminedawiderangeofpotentialcom- monalities and discriminators between Elite and Super-Elite athletes, including demographics,practice,training,andcompetitionhistories,andpsychosocialdevel- opment.Thepsychosocialpartofthestudyfocusedonsixdifferentfacetsofathletes’ psychosocialdevelopment:(1)positiveandnegativecriticallifeevents;(2)person- ality;(3)commitment,motivation,anddesiretocompete;(4)engagementwithpres- sure and emotional regulation; (5) context and environment; and (6) relationships with coaches, family, and peers. The present chapter reports findings with regard to the first five of these six themes. The findings with regard to sixth theme will be reportedin aseparate paper.a 1.1 REFINEMENT AND VALIDATION OF THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS IntheSpringof2010,aResearchAdvisoryTeam(RAT)ofworldauthoritiesintal- entresearchwasappointedtoassisttheleadresearchersindevelopingthereviewand list of research questions reported in Rees et al. (2016). During the Summer and Autumnof2010,theRATheldtwo,two-daymeetingstorefinethelistofresearch questions and develop appropriate methods to answer them. At the first of these meetings,eachmemberoftheRAT,wasaskedtoidentifythemostimportantfind- ingsfromtheirresearchdomainwithregardtothedevelopmentofSuper-Eliteper- formance,andtopresentthemostimportantquestionsforfutureresearchtoaddress, aTheresultsof“relationshipswithcoaches,family,andpeers”arenotreportedinthepresentchapter. ResultssuggestedthatthecoachmetthesocialsupportneedsoftheSuper-Eliteathletesinawaythat theEliteathletesdidnotexperience.Theresultsofthisimportantdiscriminatingvariablearereported inaseparatepaper(Barlowetal.,inpreparation).
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